The present invention is a continued application of International Patent Application No. PCT/KR02/00126, which was filed 27 Jan. 2002 and claims the priority of Korean Patent Application No. 10-2001-0003956, filed 27 Jan. 2001, and International Patent Application No. PCT/KR02/01035, which was filed 31 May 2002 and claims the priority of Korean Patent Application No. 10-2001-0031284, filed 31 May 2001. International Patent Application No. PCT/KR02/00126 and its priority Korean application are entitled “Nucleic acid hybridization assay method and device using cleavage technique responsive to complementary double strand or single strand of nucleic acids or oligonucleotides”, International Patent Application No. PCT/KR02/01035 and its priority Korean application are entitled “Micro valve apparatus using micro bead and method for controlling the same”, and Korean Patent Application No. 10-2005-0038765 entitled “Digital bio disc (DBD), DBD driver apparatus and assay method using the same”. The disclosures of the above previous applications are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.
The invention disclosed in the prior application provide a nucleic acid hybridization assay method and device using a cleavage technique responsive to a complementary double strand or single strand of-nucleic acids are applicable to diverse quantitative or qualitative assay devices. In addition, the micro valve is an essential element to control the flow of fluid in a lab-on-a-chip. In addition, the invention also provides a bio disc where the assay method and device are integrated in a disc and a bio driver apparatus including a bio optical pickup module device for driving and controlling the bio disc.
In addition, the invention disclosed in the prior application provide a nucleic acid assay device comprising a detector including an optical device, an electrochemical device, or a capacitance and impedance measurement device to detect or cleaved signal elements. The detected results can be digitized as computer executable software and provided through an established communications network, such as the Internet, to a patient or a doctor. In this manner, a remote diagnostic system ensuring convenience to both patient and doctor can be implemented based on the nucleic acid assay device. A capacitance and impedance measurement for the detector may include inter-digitated array electrodes with cleavable signal elements, as disclosed in the previous application.
Recently, various methods for analyzing bio samples including blood in medical fields have been proposed. Among them, a bio sensor using an enzyme analyzing method can be simply applied and obtain a rapid result with a good detection sensitivity, so that the bio sensor has been most widely used in hospitals and clinic assay laboratories. The enzyme analyzing method is mainly classified into a coloring method as a spectroscopic method and an electrode method as an electrochemical method. A bio sensor using the coloring method is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,509,859, entitled “Apparatus for optoelectronic evaluation of test strips” (Apr. 9, 1985). A bio sensor using the electrode method is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,655,880, entitled “Apparatus and method for sensing species, substances and substrates using oxidase” (Apr. 7, 1987).
As an example, there is a bio sensor for measuring blood sugar. In a blood sugar measuring technique using the coloring method, a blood measuring apparatus is designed to sense a change in color of a coloring matter due to glucose. A strip having a porous polymer membrane into which a reagent can easily permeate is used. As a currently representative test strip for the coloring method, SureStep of Lifescan Company and Glucotrend of Roche Company are commercially provided.
In the electrode method, instead of the coloring matter, an electric medium is used to measure electrons generated when an oxidizing enzyme of the glucose reacts with the electrode. In the method, since color is not measured, interference of red corpuscle does not occur. As a current representative electro-chemical bio sensor, GlucoDr of All Medicus Company, Glucocard of Arkray Company, Accutrend Sensor of Roche Company, Precision QID of Abbott Company, and others are commercially provided.
Since the bio sensor using the coloring method can be easily implemented, the bio sensors for various bio samples have been developed. However, the bio sensor using the coloring method has a long measuring time in comparison with the bio sensor using the electrode method, and there is a measuring error caused from turbidity of the bio samples. Therefore, the bio sensor using the coloring method has difficulty in analyzing important bio samples.
The bio sensor using the electrode method has a short measuring time in comparison with the bio sensor using the coloring method, so that it can be easily used with high measurement accuracy. However, the bio sensors for various bio samples are not developed in comparison with the bio sensors using the coloring method, so that it can be used for only a few types of bio samples.
When the test strip for measuring bio sample and blood sugar is used, the measuring result can be obtained within a few second. In addition, the test strip can be easily purchased in the open market. In general, the test strip is manufactured in a disposable type and very inexpensive in comparison with a bio disc.
However, bio sample and blood sugar measuring apparatuses using a test strip has three shortcomings as follows. The shortcomings of the exemplified blood sugar measuring apparatus are described.
Firstly, prior to blood sugar measuring, an operator using blood sugar measuring apparatus should input a correction code number written in a strip container to blood sugar measuring apparatus by setting the button of blood sugar measuring apparatus or set a correction code to blood sugar measuring apparatus by using check strip (or test strip for correction). It is inconvenient for us to repeat this code setting operation again whenever one purchases strip newly.
Secondly, as a test sample for test strip, when requiring not whole blood, but serum or plasma, it is inconvenient to drive a centrifugal separator for obtaining these from whole blood and a separation process for extracting serum or plasma floated in the upside after the centrifugal separation. In addition, for the purpose of this, a separate centrifugal separator is required.
Thirdly, when analyzing various bio samples by using one measuring apparatus, it is usually inconvenient for us notify to the measuring apparatus of information about assayed material for analyzing by means of the button. For example, for blood sugar measuring apparatus, since main users of it are the old, even a very simple button operation is inconvenient for them. A code chip is developed to overcome such shortcomings. The manner using the code chip has a merit that it includes the information about assayed material to notify the measuring apparatus of much information about the test strip, but it has a shortcoming that a inconvenient process such as inserting the code chip into the measuring apparatus is required and a manufacturing cost of the code chip itself is high.
Fourthly, it has inconvenience that the measuring apparatus for coloring-method strip and the measuring apparatus for electrode-method strip are required separately.
To solve such problems, by arranging a perception electrode and a resistor on the strip, a patent that classify automatically whether the test strip in use is an electrode-method test strip or a coloring-method test strip to protocol accordingly by the measuring apparatus thereby to display an analyzing result in a liquid crystal display part is disclosed in Korean Patent Application Publication No. 10-2004-0004739 entitled “An apparatus for analyzing a bio sample quantitatively” and Korean Patent Application Publication No. 10-2001-0049234 entitled “An electrochemical bio chip having a perception electrode and an apparatus using the same”. Such a perception electrode is arranged on the strip, and is read by the socket part of the measuring apparatus. When the strip is inserted into the socket part, the measuring apparatus perceives the types of the correction code and the analyzing material automatically by checking the state of the electrically contacted strip by the perception electrode.
However, for the contact type using the perception electrode, it is difficult to avoid a loss and an error due to mechanical wear of the socket part according to a frequent use of the strip. In addition, to classify various types of strips, the large number of the perception electrodes is required accordingly, and there is a problem that the perception electrode is complex and the design is limited accordingly.
However, since it is easy for us to separate serum and plasma from a bio disc by centrifugal force according to rotation, it is more efficient to use the bio disc than the strip in the diagnosis and assay requiring serum and plasma. However, since the bio disc includes various chemical processes, it takes a long time to obtain a analyzing and a measuring result, and the price of it is high compared to that of the strip.
In addition, for the assay site of the bio disc, the various types of the capture probes may be fixed to the assay site, and the number of the fixed array may be varied. Therefore, there may be the various types of the bio disc model or version. Therefore, to read the assay site accurately, a bio driver apparatus for controlling the bio disc should know exactly the model of the bio disc and the positional information and the array information for the assay site according to this.
Therefore, to manage diabetes effectively, since the blood sugar should be measured frequently, it is more efficient to use the strip than to use the bio disc in order to measure the blood sugar frequently within a short time. However, it is more efficient to use the bio chip in the analysis requiring serum or plasma as a test sample.
Therefore, a bio driver apparatus capable of driving both of the bio disc and the test strip is needed. In addition, strip IDs (identification) and product ID for identifying types of test strips and models and versions of bio discs are needed.